WARREN — Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Sean J. O’Brien has denied death row inmate Andre “Kokomo” Williams’ appeal for relief from the death penalty because of an intellectual disability claim, also known as an Atkins claim.

Williams, 56, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 for the Aug. 15, 1988, aggravated murder of George Melnick and attempted rape and attempted aggravated murder of his wife, Kathryn, in their southeast side Warren home. Codefendant Christopher Daniel attacked her with a cinder block, severely beat her and permanently injured her, including a total loss of vision.

Daniel is serving a 37-to-100-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary, but is scheduled for his next parole hearing in March of this year. Evidence also showed Williams attempted to rape Kathryn Melnick as she lay unconscious on the kitchen floor.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Atkins vs. Virginia, decided those with intellectual disability cannot be executed. The same argument is being used by Danny Lee Hill, who was convicted of killing 12-year-old Raymond Fife in 1986.

Previously, Judge W. Wyatt McKay had rejected Williams’ Atkins claim. However, a successful appeal filed by the federal public defender’s office required McKay to readdress the issue. After nine days of testimony in 2019, McKay again found Williams was not intellectually disabled.

Because of a technical issue, McKay again revisited the issue, and again rejected Williams’ assertion, finding his claim of intellectual disability was not supported by the evidence. McKay reaffirmed Williams’ conviction and death sentence.

In December of 2023, the 11th District Court of Appeals reversed McKay’s 51-page decision, instructing the trial court to reconsider Williams’ argument because of a change in the law. However, because McKay retired, O’Brien was now tasked with conducting the review.

In his decision, rendered last month, O’Brien cited 20 different evaluators, from 1989 until 2015, who did not find Willams was intellectually disabled versus only four, who had been hired by Williams’ attorneys, who found he was disabled, including one who changed her mind after being notified by the defendant’s attorneys.

In his ruling, O’Brien stated Wiliams had provided “too many inconsistent and contradictory statements” for professionals and the court to agree on basic facts concerning Williams.

Also, O’Brien found “the defendant has demonstrated that he was spoiled and lazy growing up; has anger issues; has a sense of entitlement; has a prior head injury; has abused drugs and alcohol and has continuously lied.” The court continued the “defendant has failed to prove he has significant limitations in any of the three prongs as set forth in Atkins. There is sufficient evidence to provide an alternative explanation to an intellectual disability.”

The court noted that Williams “appears to have a very specific secondary agenda,” and “it is hard to determine what was the truth and to whom did he tell it.” The judge noted Williams does not have any deficits with memory, which is intact. He has extensive knowledge about history, including the World Trade Center bombing and former President Bill Clinton pulling troops from Somalia in 1993, and Williams was able to recall them at a 2016 evaluation, O’Brien wrote.

Also, during evaluations, he was adequately conversing with the health professionals, expressing his wishes, desires and concerns through discussions, letters and emails. He also has been able to use a telephone since his youth and told evaluators he was a skilled driver of several different types of vehicles. He also does not have any significant deficits with problem solving.

Prior to the murder, O’Brien noted Williams “moved to Florida where he built scaffolding and drilled light fixtures for a grocery store. He stayed in hotels during this time. He was fired when he stopped doing the work and started spending his money on prostitutes. He made his own bus transportation arrangements to move back to Ohio. Shortly after his return, the murder occurred. The defendant used the stolen money to purchase a car and have it painted. Shortly thereafter, when he suspected the police were looking for him, he moved to Rochester, New York, for several months.”

The judge also found that if Williams had the motivation as a youth, his writing and reading ability would have been higher prior to incarceration. However, the record shows Williams to be sufficiently savvy to write obscene, vulgar and threatening letters to some “pen pals” while in prison.

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins praised O’Brien’s 102-page “common sense” decision as judicially sound, and which now again found Williams not to be suffering any disqualifying disability and therefore was properly sentenced to death by McKay.